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>Yet it does seem to go against the basic idea that many of proponents of manned space exploration tout: a second home to ensure our survival. This is slightly

>Yet it does seem to go against the basic idea that many of proponents of manned space exploration tout: a second home to ensure our survival. This is slightly tangential, but I think it's important to point out that Mars is more than a survival shelter. The point of colonizing Mars is to preserve human civilization, not merely our species. Civilization is a higher level emergent thing that can only exist in large prosperous groups of humans. Almost nothing could actually kill the human species, but tons of stuff could end civilization. A self sustaining Mars guarantees our continued social and technological advance.

Retric 9y ago
An Earth-Mars war could use nuclear weapons without the risk of fallout. So, it may actually lower the odds that civilization survives.
- nickparker 9y ago
  We can't meaningfully speculate about what such a war would look like, technology will advance too much before then. I don't think it would be nuclear though. Nuclear bombs are delicate devices, the only reason they work on Earth is because they hit too fast to intercept. Interplanetary war will have at least 1 month long trips between the two planets unless we see some insane tech breakthroughs. A war fleet would be pretty easy to spot and blast out of the sky, as would any missiles launched planet to planet. Hitting something at the insane speeds of ICBMs becomes much easier when you have days to aim.
  - Retric 9y ago
    It's not that hard to fake what is and is not a bomb in space. Consider their is no air resistance so use an inflatable balloon which may or may not have a bomb inside. For 10,000 kg you could probably send up 100,000+ fake bombs which would all have slightly different vectors making hitting them all very hard. Further, if you use something mechanical vs inflation it's not obvious if something was shot down or not. Worse, the attacker may feel they can use something like that while shooting down any responses.

Retric 9y ago

An Earth-Mars war could use nuclear weapons without the risk of fallout. So, it may actually lower the odds that civilization survives.

nickparker 9y ago
We can't meaningfully speculate about what such a war would look like, technology will advance too much before then. I don't think it would be nuclear though. Nuclear bombs are delicate devices, the only reason they work on Earth is because they hit too fast to intercept. Interplanetary war will have at least 1 month long trips between the two planets unless we see some insane tech breakthroughs. A war fleet would be pretty easy to spot and blast out of the sky, as would any missiles launched planet to planet. Hitting something at the insane speeds of ICBMs becomes much easier when you have days to aim.
- Retric 9y ago
  It's not that hard to fake what is and is not a bomb in space. Consider their is no air resistance so use an inflatable balloon which may or may not have a bomb inside. For 10,000 kg you could probably send up 100,000+ fake bombs which would all have slightly different vectors making hitting them all very hard. Further, if you use something mechanical vs inflation it's not obvious if something was shot down or not. Worse, the attacker may feel they can use something like that while shooting down any responses.